After being offline for a few months, I have finally been able to replace our dead forum board, with a brand new state of the art forum system called the Invision Power Board.

We HAD been using IkonBoard 3.1.1, which suffered massive unfixable security issues, and upon trying to update many different ways to the latest version of 3.1.5, it promptly committed suicide. Hundreds of spams a day were being injected, and the Ikonforum team in the years since I had originally installed the software no longer existed or cared for full path upgrades. This was very disconcerting, and painful to loose so many useful posts.

I was able to save the data in a database, but attempts to salvage them coherently into the new software haven’t been fully successfull…yet.

But… the NEW board is COMPLETELY operational. I’ve already got two new moderators, and more to come.

Jump on over to the SRCC (SurvivalRing Community Center) and register a username and start posting away.

The more the merrier…

Rich
Founder - SurvivalRing

Occasionally, I’ll receive emails to my old email accounts asking specific fallout shelter questions…some that make sense, and some that are completely off the wall.

This question arrived today, and it made sense. Hopefully you’ll bookmark this post and remember it someday, should you be thinking the same thing.

This was my response to him. Print it out and have it in your three ring emergency END OF THE WORLD binder in your Bug Out Bag.

Hi,

Yes, it is possible to have an emergency egress portal…but not neccessarily a window. You’ll need the protection of mass (dirt, sand, gravel, etc) to keep the gamma ray instrusion down, to avoid rad illness, immunodeficiency problems and general syptoms of death.

A quick overview of how…

Build your shelter underground, or in a corner of the basement. Use plenty of mass for 360 degree protection. Check out the shelter plans available on my website at www.survivalring.org .

On one wall with access to the yard, you’ll want to build what is essentially a window frame into the concrete/cinderblock well. After your shelter is done, but before you backfill the outer wall, fill that window frame with bricks and mortar…maybe two layers thick. Probably wouldn’t hurt to put several layers of plaster, mortar, or even a layer or two of fiberglass, over the inner and outer surfaces of this emergency egress point to waterproof the opening as much as possible.

Let it set for several days and harden appropriately. Then, backfill the outer surface of the area of that “egress portal” with coarse rock, then gravel, and a foot or two of earth.

Your external shell of your shelter will now be complete and protective to the best possible level.

Now, what do you do if you NEED this exit to get out…such as the rest of your home collapsing in the blast wave of a nearby nuclear detonation? First, wait…until possible fallout threat is past. Do your research on time needed to stay in shelter, have emergency food and water, several kinds of radios (am, fm, shortwave, police scanner, etc), and LISTEN for what is happening. If you cannot get out of your shelters main entrance after at least 10 to 14 days down there, you’ll need to use the egress portal.

Here is where the rest of your escape planning BEFOREHAND comes in.

When you finished your shelter, you will have stocked it. Add to that stock of supplies a couple of good quality pickaxes, hammers, chisels, and a couple of shovels. These are your EGRESS TOOLS.

Putting that brick and mortar filled portal in your shelter created a weak spot that you could manually dig out with good old manual hand tools.

To get out…use the tools, and hammer away to remove the bricks and mortar from that hole in the slab concrete (or whatever else you used for the rest of the shell of your shelter. Simply let the debris fall to the floor of the shelter, where you can sweep it away, kick it aside or climb on top of to help you get it. Might not hurt to have in your preps a couple of large empty barrels to let the debris fall into as you’re digging out.

As you get thru the bricks and mortar, the coarse rocks (which by the way, will help in keeping water from draining thru any cracks, by funnelling moisture (rain, etc) away from the egress portal, will start falling into the new opening, as well as the gravel on top of it, and then some of the earth…just let this all fall into the shelter/barrels/whatever. Use your shovel to dig up into the rest of the yard and grass that may be supported from the root system…and you should be out.

You might possibly have more debris on top of that egress hole. A good reason to have a couple of large 5 to 20 ton bottle jacks in your shelter for just this possibility, and a couple of 2×6 or 2×8 wood end pieces to brace the jack against the egress opening, to provide a solid foundation for the jacks to lift up any extreme weights. These could lift debris enough to get you to freedom and fresh air.

A basement shelter could be blocked completely should the house fall in on it…so a middle of the yard buried shelter might be the ultimate plan…less debris to have to lift directly off the emergency exit.

Hope this helps.

Rich

P.S. These are my other websites, where you will find thousands of pages of shelter info …I’ve been working on these for many years since…

www.survivalring.org

www.myfalloutshelter.com

www.theblastshelter.com

www.cosmicechoes.org

www.survivalcd.com

I just finished two college degrees…in web design, and electronic media .. and I’m continuing my education to finish a journalism degree in the next couple of years. I’m going to be producing a LOT more online and offline materials of just this kind of info.

Do some googling of survivalring, richard fleetwood wyoming, and fallout shelter…and you’ll find I’ve been very busy continuing my preparedness pursuits…

Time for another news update from Wyoming .

In the last 6 weeks or so, SurvivalRing has had a major set of attacks from many different sources. Due to some open source file security holes, we had a few “Script Kiddies” break into the site, and cause both some disfigured home pages (twice), major spam attack (twice), and some political hacking from a group of Islamo-Facists, who posted anti-Israeli war pictures of war victims, including mangled children…it was horribly nasty… Mine was NOT the only site. I know of hundreds of other sites which were using the same open source tools, that were hacked in the same way…it was an automated and combined attack…but needless to say, we were a victim.

All scripts have been updated, but our chat room is still down…to be finished this weekend soon. The chat hack seriously affected thousands of sites, and for a few weeks, a huge rush of these same script kiddies kept trying to get in, after I had removed the weak link in the chat code.

I’ve even seen a video made by the hackers, showing EXACTLY how to break into and destroy sites…it was amazingly simply, once the hole was found. Be certain…I AM watching the site admin section VERY closely, and have installed extended tools to track hack attempts and IP addresses.

I’ve also had to fix a few other sites I admin, who received the same automated attacks. So, I’ve been a bit busy. My apologies for a lack of updates here on the blog.

Stay tuned…major updates coming to the SurvivalRing website.

Rich

Being one of those kind of people who tries to ready for any little thing, I usually have on my belt a Gerber multitool (which I use at least a dozen times a day), and a MiniMag double A flashlight in its own little holster. This is great for college, when you’re digging under desks trying to fix other people’s computers, traipsing across campus after dark after closing the lab, or fixing the car in the parking lot at Walmart after the rear bearing goes out on the ALTERNATOR, of all things.

Well, the cool tool above is an UPGRADE kit to any AA minimag flashlight, that allows you to LED based light, with a greatly increased lifespan of your batteries.

Takes only minutes to change out a couple of parts, with NO tools needed, and the light seems to be ever so much brighter, at least what I’ve seen under the desks I’ve worked on lately. Give it a try!

Aa Mini Maglite LED Conversion Kit, You Save $3.02 - Use keycode SPRINGFLING at checkout, Expires 05/10/2006